Containers made of corrugated paperboard are widely used to ship goods from a point of manufacture or other location to a point of sale. When transporting finished products from the point of manufacture or other location to the point of sale, or to an intermediate storage facility, it is often desirable to enclose a quantity of products or smaller retail packages within a larger, more durable shipping container. Not only does this preserve the products in their desired, saleable condition, but it minimizes the number of individual items to be handled and generally provides more uniformly shaped items for stacking and handling. Typical shipping containers comprise rectangular boxes with four sidewalls and top and bottom flaps glued closed over the top and bottom of the box. While such containers have proven effective in protecting the finished products during transport and storage, they are generally inappropriate for retail display, and retailers typically remove the individual product items from the container and place them individually on store shelving.
Although removal of individual product items from the shipping container and placing them individually on store shelving is suitable in some cases, the practice of displaying goods in shipping containers has become more popular with the advent of large warehouse style stores and supermarkets where the containers are stacked on top of one another on the retail floor.
In attempting to adapt a conventional shipping container for display of the product items held therein, a retailer might use a cutting implement to cut away a section of the shipping container to form an opening for display of and access to the product items. However, the use of cutting implements to open cases can damage the products and can weaken the container to the point that it cannot be safely stacked with other containers.
In an effort to provide a container more suitable for displaying products in a retail setting, containers have been developed which are convertible to an open display configuration upon reaching the point of sale. Containers of this variety include those of a generally tray-like configuration with a removable cover. Although representing an improvement over conventional corrugated shipping containers, these containers still offer somewhat limited product access, particularly when such containers are in the midst of a stack of containers extending above and below.
Another type of display container has one or more removable sections or display panels typically defined by perforated tear lines. Such containers are generally formed from a one-piece blank suitably cut, scored, and perforated to enable subsequent folding of the blank into the final closed container. After receiving the packaged goods, the retailer removes the display panel from the container to provide access to the goods even when the container is stacked. However, a line or lines of perforations can weaken the box in its shipping configuration and reduce its protection performance, and/or it leaves too jagged an edge and reduces the visual appeal of the container when the display panel is removed at the point of sale.
Another important consideration with the design of a shipping container convertible to a display container is the compatibility of the container with existing automated manufacturing and packaging equipment. Containers are typically made on automated production lines. Any suitable container design should be compatible with such production equipment. Further, the packagers typically use automated packaging lines which assemble the container from a flat knocked down state and load the container with goods prior to the container being closed. Any design of a shipping container convertible to a display container should be compatible with automated packaging equipment.
A further important consideration is economy of manufacture. Regular slotted carton (“RSC”) and half slotted carton (“HSC”) boxes have been known in the art of shipping containers for many years. The RSC and HSC boxes are highly economical shipping containers due to the fact that there is very little manufacturing waste. Further, due to their rectangular shape they are well suited to shipping goods via cargo container, truck, train, or any other means of transport in which efficient use of space is a priority. As a result, RSC and HSC boxes are widely used for shipping and storing many different types of goods.
The RSC and HSC boxes are each formed from a single rectangular blank, typically of corrugated paperboard and have four rectangular sidewall panels. The RSC box has flaps on both the top and bottom edges of the sidewalls, and the HSC box has flaps only on the bottom edges of the sidewalls. The HSC box typically is used with a separate lid or cover, or is inserted into another box that forms a closure for the open top. In order to erect these boxes from a rectangular blank, four crush folds are made parallel to the depth of the box to define the four sidewall panels, and further crush folds are made parallel to the length and width of the box to define upper and lower flaps in the case of a RSC box, or to form lower flaps in the case of a HSC box. Either style of box is articulated by folding along the crush folds so that the sidewall panels are disposed at right angles to one another and the flap panels are folded inwardly to close the top and bottom of the box (RSC) or the bottom of the box (HSC), with the flaps associated with the shorter sides of the box being folded inwardly first, followed by the flaps associated with the longer sides. The flaps are then secured in closed position by any suitable means, such as tape, adhesive, staples, etc. The bottom side of either style box typically is closed first, the desired goods are then inserted into the box, and the top side is then closed. However, the box may instead be articulated around the goods themselves and the top and bottom closed thereafter.
One significant disadvantage of the RSC and HSC boxes, however, is the fact that such boxes are not well suited for use as display containers in a retail environment. This is due to the fact that the goods within opened RSC and HSC boxes are not visible, other than from the top, unless a portion of one or more sidewall panels is first separated from the box by means of cutting or tearing. Not only does this require additional effort on the part of the retailer, it also tends to result in an unattractive display container having rough, uneven edges, which can be unsightly in the retail environment.
As a result, goods shipped in an RSC or HSC box typically are removed from the box upon arrival at the vending location and placed on shelves or into other containers for display, with the box then simply being discarded. This results in both a significant expenditure of time on the part of the retailer in transferring the goods from the shipping boxes to the display environment, as well as added expense in the form of shelving or display bins for such goods.
A further disadvantage of the RSC and HSC boxes is they are not well-adapted for displaying high-impact graphics thereon. As a result, when such containers are used to store and display goods in a retail environment, for example in warehouse stores where shipping containers are often placed directly on the sales floor, there is little potential of providing high-impact sales copy or advertising on such containers.
Accordingly, there is need for a shipping container that can utilize a HSC box design with a cover that can accommodate high end graphics, that has a removable display panel that enables the container to be easily converted to a display container at the point of sale without requiring the use of cutting implements to form an access and display opening, that may be stacked with other containers without obscuring the display opening, that leaves a clean edge for enhanced visual appeal when the display panel is removed, that can be manufactured and filled using existing manufacturing and packaging equipment with minimal changes to the equipment, that is capable of receiving high end graphics, and that has a protective outer panel overlying the removable display panel during shipping to protect graphics and strengthen lines of weakness that permit easy removal of the display panel.